


Mythology

by WerewolvesAreReal



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Exorcisms, Gen, Religious Conflict, Roman Catholicism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:53:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26576335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WerewolvesAreReal/pseuds/WerewolvesAreReal
Summary: The matron calls him a demon. The matron says many idiotic things that aren't true, but Tom Riddle knows even fools can be right occasionally.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 94





	Mythology

There is nothing evil about a baby.

Sure, Tom Riddle's screams and cries are a bit louder than most, and the wetnurse Wool's finds for him complains constantly that he bites too hard until they soon move him to formula. By the time he's three months old he's mostly stopped, though, and becomes known for unnatural silence instead. By this point the staff just toss lukewarm bottles of milk into his battered second-hand crib. This is not due to any overt strangeness on the baby's part; the orphanage workers are very busy, and simply can't be bothered to pay his cries and wailing any mind. One or two, in less kind moments, think it would be less work if he simply dies in his crib. But they are not murderers and he survives this passive neglect anyway.

By the time Tom Riddle is toddling he's grown wan and thin, with no traces of the usual baby-fat. But he's cute nonetheless – it's rare to find a baby this age who isn't cute. The matron, Mrs. Cole, has high hopes for him. Most children come to the orphanage older, and older children are much harder to place with families. Parents don't want to deal with children who cry about the figures they miss, the things that came before. Parents don't want to deal with sullen teenagers who might resent them (even though some of these teenagers would love them wholeheartedly.) But babies are easy. Babies get adopted, especially the cute ones.

Mrs. Cole doesn't often watch Tom herself, of course. The orphanage is full but underfunded, and there are few staff; mostly she chides some of the older girls to watch him, which they do begrudgingly. Few children go through Wool's and came out cooing about cute babies and hoping for a family. In their crowded lives, babies are a source of noise and fuss – not to mention envy.

So Tom Riddle grows in this state for a few years – a somewhat neglected but normal child, treated decently as any of the Orphanage's children. By the time he is four he only knows Mrs. Cole very dimly, in the sort of way we all know principals or managers or politicians – a distant figure who hopefully will never look at us too closely. Mrs. Cole is not an unfair matron, nor an unsympathetic one; but she is strict and unloving. In fairness it is hard to love orphans at such an orphanage, where all the children are either adopted away or grow bitter and regretful under her own care.

But Tom Riddle never thinks about any of that.

Tom Riddle, at the age of four, is a quiet boy. Quiet children are not always the ones adopted first, but it is better to be too-quiet than too-loud, especially because it is not always good to be noticed. Recently a young couple came around, curious about adopting him, and Billy and Agatha – two children just a few years older than Tom – have since taken to tripping him in the halls and stealing his breakfast.

They're just jealous, of course. Even young Tom realizes this, in a distant and instinctive sort of way. But that knowledge doesn't make his stomach hurt less from hunger, or keep his knees from shredding when he falls.

Then one day Tom is sitting with a little picture-book in his hands. Tom can already read alright – even if other kids keep saying he's a liar – but he's mostly looking at the funny pictures until Billy grabs the book from his hands, just to be mean.

Angry, Tom raises his hand. The book snaps back to him like it's been connected by a string.

Astonished, Billy snatches the book again. And, again, the book floats away with a twist of Tom's will.

Delighted, Tom floats the book above his head. Billy gawks at him, stumbling away and sprawling against a nearby chair. The clattering must attract attention because a series of footsteps soon resolves into the shape of the matron through the door.

“Look!” Tom cries, laughing a bit and waving the floating books with just a twitch of his fingers. “Look, Mrs. Cole!”

She stares at him, aghast, but Tom doesn't notice through his delight. He's already forgotten Billy cowering against the floor. He wants her to be pleased, excited. He wants her to praise this strange skill. Last week Agatha learned to ride a bike, and Mrs. Cole said she did a very good job and was really a big girl now. Mark Collins drew a picture, and Mrs. Cole told him he was going to be a great artist. But Tom has done something more impressive than either of them.

Mrs. Cole responds by slapping him across the face.

Tom cries out. The book falls.

“By Christ above,” Mrs. Cole gasps, heaving for breath like she's run a mile. “By all things Holy...” She crosses herself, then does it again, again, again.

On Sunday Mrs. Cole takes Tom to see the priest.

The priest listens to her words calmly, smile bland and polite as Mrs. Cole talks about the _evil witchcraft_ Tom committed while Tom cowers by her side. The priest kneels down and asks Tom to relay what happened. Tom does, but when the priest asks Tom to repeat his levitation trick, he can't.

“He's not possessed,” the priest soothes Mrs. Cole. “People are rarely _actually_ possessed. Are you really sure of what you saw? I know you've been under a great deal of stress, with that orphanage...”

“I know what I saw,” says Mrs. Cole. But even Tom thinks she seems doubtful.

* * *

Tom is a clever child, and he learns quickly.

He learns that Mrs. Cole does not like it when he levitates things, or burns them, or makes bright lights when the stars are covered and the bulbs are out again. These things inevitably result in angry scoldings, rumors, a tight hand on his arm or against his cheek. On Sundays she often drags him back in front of the priest, who starts looking a little concerned – not because of Tom, but for him, he thinks. A worker from the government comes around once and talks to Tom, asking if Mrs. Cole hurts him, but even though Tom says yes nothing ever happens.

So Tom is good and careful. He hides his strangeness from Mrs. Cole, and even from the other children, who learn to be wary of him. Tom doesn't have any friends after Megan Jones stole his Christmas cake and Tom burnt her hair. But that's alright. He doesn't need friends.

He _doesn't._

Then one Sunday when Tom is seven Mrs. Cole drags him to the Church and sits with her hand clasped on Tom's shoulder throughout the whole, boring service. Father Holland sends them a few worried glances. When people start leaving he asks Mrs. Cole to enter his office.

As soon as they're inside she starts ranting. She saw Tom doing his strange things, she says. She saw it, she _did._ He destroyed Cory's homework with his mind and set the table on fire, he lit the table with _hellfire_ and they are all going to _burn in Hell_ if they don't stop him, because Tom's a monster, a demon, he stole the body of a baby and he's going to kill them all -

Father Holland tries to calm her down but doesn't try hard enough. It makes Tom angry, listening to her. He only destroyed Cory's homework because Cory took Tom's paper and copied, without even asking! And he lit the table on fire just to scare the others – it's not like anyone was hurt. Even the table is fine. Last week Cory shoved Tom down the stairs; no one got mad about _that._

He sits, stewing and seething in these injustices, until Mrs. Cole swears, “That boy isn't natural, and he's going to hurt the actual, innocent children in my care - “

Innocent! Innocent, thinks Tom!

Overhead the lightbulb bursts. Quick as a blink Mrs. Cole slams against the far wall, keeling over with a cry.

Father Holland jolts to his feet. His desk rattles – knickknacks, bibles, decorative crosses, books and papers and more rattle and shake around the room. Tom jolts to his feet as the window cracks with a sound like a gunshot. “It was Cory's fault!” he cries. “His fault! Not mine!”

But no one is listening. Father Holland believes Mrs. Cole at last, and the next day Tom learns what an exorcism is.

It's not pleasant.

It also doesn't work.

* * *

Later that night, Tom curls up in his battered cot at the orphanage and does what any hurt child would do: he fantasizes about a better life.

For a given definition of 'better.'

Tom is a demon. That's what Mrs. Cole has been saying for years, and now even Father Holland agrees, even though they haven't found Tom's True Name yet or broken his powers. Mrs. Cole is an idiot – all humans are idiots – but he knows they're right about this.

Sometimes the snakes in the garden whisper to him. He hasn't told anyone, because he learned his lesson before. Snakes are associated with demons – everyone knows that. And they like Tom. They say he's special. They call him _master_.

So these things feed Tom's fantasy. Where most orphan-children might return to their beds after a grueling day to dream of kind families and warm homes, Tom thinks about Hell and tries to reconcile himself with the idea of living there. Where most children with no known parents think about kind relatives swooping down to save them, Tom wonders if his father was a demon too. Maybe that's why his mother came to Wool's doors so bedraggled and desperate, as the matron once told him. Maybe that's why she died in childbirth – humans aren't meant to give birth to demons, after all.

Maybe Tom's father is a prince of demons. Maybe his father is _Satan,_ and Tom's mother fled to hide him. Maybe Tom's father would kill him, or maybe he's here to hide from God until he's stronger, and then he can join his father to reign in Hell.

That means he has to be better, though. Here at the orphanage he has to listen to Mrs. Cole and the priest. Stupid, petty humans who want to hurt him.

But they only see Tom Riddle. His real name is – is -

Something else. Even Tom doesn't know. But the priest said names have power, and demons aren't named _Tom._ One day Tom will get his real name, and his full powers, and he won't have to endure horrible things like exorcisms anymore.

That night Tom decides not to sleep. With his thoughts and fantasies twisting around his mind, he sits up and stares at a piece of forgotten homework on his rickety desk. It doesn't float like he intends – but halfway through the night he grows angry at this failure and it bursts into flames instead.

It's a start.

* * *

As Tom grows older, he reads.

He reads the Bible a great deal, which even Mrs. Cole can't remonstrate him for. He finds many parts of it tiresome, and other parts stupid. He notices and remembers that the God inside often creates loyalty through fear, like the preachers and priests do with their sermons of hellfire. This makes sense to him. He especially likes reading Revelations, with its descriptions of the end-times, and wonders if maybe _that's_ why he was born.

Sometimes if the other children aren't calling him a devil or demon they call him an anti-christ. Tom likes that.

Tom also reads other books. At the tiny library nearby he finds a book that lists the names of demons and angels, and one day on his rambling walks outside Wool's Tom finds a small second-hand bookstore where the owners don't mind him ambling around the backroom and reading books for hours without buying them.

Tom restrains from stealing anything only because he doesn't want to risk having that privilege taken away.

There he finds a lot of old books – the kind Mrs. Cole would ban if she saw them. Some are fantasy, but he also reads the _Malleus Maleficarum_ and wonders if his father was an incubi. He struggles through books by Aleister Crowley and scribbles down a few rituals to try in his room (they don't work.) He finds a little red-backed book with no title that contains many ominous and grave declarations about the end of the world. It seems like a book of sermons, but it talks so much about hellfire and damnation that Tom reads it again and again, his veins thrumming with a mix of fear and desire and hunger.

_Other_ people, like Mrs. Cole, might have to be afraid of Hell. Tom is a demon though. He wouldn't suffer in hell. He would rule.

He finds a copy of _Paradise Lost_ at the library when he's nine and reads it side-by-side with a dictionary, sometimes pausing to scrub his eyes and reread hard sections. The rhythm of the words is trapped in his head for days after, and with a little effort he finds he can focus enough to speak in blank verse when he wants. Something about the singsong nature of this speech unsettles the other orphans, so Tom keeps practicing it.

His powers grow and grow, even though his physical body is frustratingly weak. Tom learns he can hurt people. He can look at their eyes and know if they're lying to him, which makes sense – demons are masters of deception. Mrs. Cole says so, anyway, whenever she punishes Tom for lying. Tom has become good at making people do things for him, but he learns that it works best when they're already distracted. Mrs. Cole is too suspicious to be tricked easily.

Tom also learns to hurt people. He practices on Dennis and Amy in a cave, during the annual summer visit to the seaside where no one can hear their cries or begging. He doesn't leave any marks. The other children really start to fear him, which is good. It means Tom isn't troubled with their human drama; he has more important things to do, like studying.

When Tom is nine he hangs Billy Stubb's rabbit from the rafters after the boy steals and ruins a few of his things. Mrs. Cole can't prove it was him, but it's no coincidence that she drops him off with the priest afterward.

Tom brings an adder with him.

The next night he nearly vibrates with fear and horror in his bed, remembering, wondering. He half-expects the cops to show up, or maybe the bishop. But nothing happens. The priest is replaced quietly, and he's mourned, and Tom is pretty sure that even Mrs. Cole doesn't blame him.

He didn't _try_ to hurt the priest. This is important. The man called him evil and said he needed to be _cured._ He held Tom's face under the water until he couldn't breathe, and he _whipped_ him -

Tom brought the adder along to scare the priest, not to hurt him. But he finds he isn't really sorry. Especially when the new priest refuses to believe in demons at all, turning down all Mrs. Cole's efforts to sway him.

Anyway, she's not so much trouble anymore. Tom gets very, very good at make people do what he wants, and soon he makes Mrs. Cole forget all about some of the worst things she's seen him do. She starts questioning her own memory. Tom's powers don't work very well on her, but it's enough.

Especially when she starts drinking a lot.

* * *

Mrs. Cole gets wearier and wearier as the years pass. Not that Tom cares.

By the time he turns eleven Tom has fallen into a steady rhythm at the Orphanage. The other children mostly fear him, and therefore leave him alone, which is fine. Tom spends a lot of his time wandering the streets visiting libraries or bookstores – or, failing that, simply watching people so he can how to imitate them. It's important to understand human behavior. Tom still doesn't know why he's _here,_ why he exists, but it must be for an important reason.

Then the man comes. The professor.

Tom thinks he's a doctor at first. The man is old and looks very serious in his formal suit and stern glasses. He's too old to be a prospective parent and Mrs. Cole calls him Professor _._ It wouldn't be the first time she turned away from the Church and tried to have Tom institutionalized. Usually Tom avoids it by acting polite, charming, but today he can feel anger like hellfire pulsing under his skin. He snaps at the old man and compels an answer.

“Tell the truth,” he commands.

The man just smiles at him.

So without that compulsion Tom doesn't know if he's being honest about representing a school – not until the man starts talking about _special abilities_ and _magic._

For a second – just an instant, amidst the wild, delirious delight that takes hold of him – some soft and nearly obliterated part of Tom's soul feels hope. He hasn't dreamed about adoption or families in years – no family would _really_ want some non-human thing like him, so there wouldn't be much point, except for practical concerns. And Tom can manage much more on his own, unhindered by the orphanage staff who are glad to see him disappear during the day, then he could in any family house.

But if there are other people, people like him, out there somewhere – enough for the term 'school' -

Then _Professor Dumbledore_ sets his wardrobe on fire, and Tom realizes that there's a danger in this new world, too.

Having more people like him means that there are powerful Sorcerers Tom in the world - people he can't compel or intimidate. He can be hurt because there are adults stronger than him who Tom can't control.

Not _yet,_ anyway.

* * *

Tom keeps his face blank as he explores the magical alley.

It's more than he expected.

When he met Professor Dumbledore and learned there are _other_ magical people, he envisioned something small. When he heard _school,_ he thought _classroom._ The magical community, he figured, would be maybe one or two hundred people spread throughout Britain. He pictured strange and secretive wisemen and witches hidden away in the swamps, or at the tops of mountains, or dug in hollows under the hills. The school would be a covert, sheltered place at the heart of the land's magic, where Tom would learn with maybe five or six other, special children.

But this is... normal.

There's magic everywhere, of course, and Tom's mind works in overdrive as he tries to follow the logic of rooms that are bigger than they appear, signs that shift color, and clothes and items that grow or shrink at the flick of a wand. But there are also gaggles of idiot children running and playing in the streets. He passes grimy drunkards steaming from their ears or coughing bubbles as he passes through the Leaky Cauldron. There's a beggar on the street rattling a cup filled with little bronze nuts. A mixed group passes by, gossiping about the newest fashions and various fabrics only notable for their names – acromantula silk, demiguise hair, griffin fur -

There's a shop of colorful magical toys for children, a bookstore advertising comics in the windows. It's all so – mundane.

Tom thought these people would be like him. But they're just... people. And he isn't.

Even if he still finds the name _Tom_ is still too boring – ~~too human~~ – for such a place.

He takes his list of required materials for school and carefully starts hunting down supplies. Tom doesn't buy anything immediately – it becomes quickly apparent that his stipend is woefully inadequate, so eventually he follows some of the less well-dressed magical folk down a sidestreet called Knockturn Alley. Near the entrance there he finds a used bookstore, and another shop that sells used clothing. In the first shop he sees a child just a year or two older than himself rifling through the shelves. When Tom exits the shop with his smaller-than-desired bag of books, he finds the boy searching through old robes in the second store. The child catches sight of him and smiles in greeting.

Overlong, tattered clothes. Dirt over his hands, fingers, and chin. A fraying bag at his side, and a depleted coin-purse. The child does not look like a wizard out of story.

But then, neither does Tom.

Tom asks him if there are any other shops; it's hard to find used robes in his size.

“Most go to Madame Jazel's, for standard robes. Twilfit and Tattings is best, but it's mostly purebloods who shop up there,” advises the dirt-faced boy. He's wearing a sunny yellow scarf and a yellow badge on the front of his robes. Tom dislikes him instantly, and feels his disdain rise with every blithe word. “The rich ones, especially.”

Tom hates seeming stupid, but he decides it doesn't matter what this child thinks of him. “Pureblood?”

“Oh – I guess you're muggleborn,” says the boy. “Purebloods are people from all-magic families. A lot of Hogwarts materials stay the same, year after year, so even the poorest ones can just pass down their own supplies. Which is why the second-hand shops are so expensive. Everyone wants to cheat muggleborns if they can...”

The boy trails off.

Tom doesn't like the implication there, but he just nods. When the boy leaves he goes up to the counter and demands lower prices for the books and robes, and finally haggles the numbers down, saving himself a few sickles.

As he's leaving he bumps into someone walking along the street and has to fumble for his supplies before they fall.

It's another child his age, dressed in sleek and plainly expensive robes, huffing. The blond-headed boy sneers at Tom. “Another mudblood,” he says. “If you have to clutter the streets, at least try to look a bit less like muggle trash.”

Tom Riddle has been called many names in his life. He has never heard the word _mudblood,_ but it's not hard to deduce what it means.

The boy walks away, forgetting Tom as though he is nothing. Because that's true, he realizes. Here Tom is not special. Even his magic is not special. But they hate him anyway, and Tom – Tom doesn't know what to _do_ with that.

People at the orphanage hated him, but there was a reason. Tom was the demon under the bed, a monster of myth hiding in human flesh. He hated and pitied the humanity of his peers because it was easier than hating himself. Now he is no one, just average, and people hate him anyway. Now he has – truly nothing.

Small, alone, Tom Riddle huddles back against the nearest shop's wall and clutches his second-hand books to himself. Around him the magical crowd continues to press on, flowing around him without pause. It doesn't look so wondrous anymore.

He finds himself breathing raggedly. Hot rage shivers down his spine. The air whips up around him in a burst of uncontrolled magic – but of course, of course, no one notices. No one cares.

Tom Riddle is nothing. And he finds, to his own shock, that he would rather be a demon – feared and respected and strange, but _important,_ special – than to be nothing.

If this new world doesn't want him - fine. He's used to that.

But Tom will make sure they know him.

Father Holland tried and tried, but he never could exorcise the demon within Tom Riddle. And the Wizarding World will not beat him down, either. The muggles know he is not human. If pureblood wizards agree, Tom sees no reason to argue.

He isn't human. He's better, and always has been.

He will rule humanity like the demon-princes in those banned stories. He will find his True Name and his father and he will craft a new legend.

And one day, everyone who spits and hates him will be _sorry._


End file.
